Mother
by OzGeek
Summary: Ducky's reflections on his mother. Spoilers for the last episode of season 5 and some of season 6. Written for the NFA "Days of Ducky" challenge. Oneshot.


**Mother**

The young dead agents who came across his table were the lucky ones, Ducky reflected on the tedious journey from his mother's nursing home one Thursday night. It was a thought that resonated through him every time he drove this route – a dark and lonely road with no clear destination in sight. To be taken down in the prime of your life was a blessing for those left behind, too. For them the memories of their dear departed would always be lively and vibrant not a sad recollection of slow disintegration. If he were in Jenny's shoes, and well he might be one day, he could easily take her choice.

Unfortunately, his mother no longer had that choice. In fact, her decline had been so gentle at first that he did not have the chance to give her the choice until she was unfit to take it.

The nursing home of her palliative care was the best he could find. The search had been a long and depressing one peppered with confused faces certain that he was their husband, brother, son or even in one case, father, come to take them from their hell and return them to the life of their youth. Many, he knew, were abandoned there by adult children or aging spouses unable or too worn out to care for them: like unwanted Christmas pets on a welfare shelter death row. Bodies never designed for such a long life span, were being kept alive by the wonders of modern medicine while the souls that inhabited them longed for release.

It had been a difficult decision for him, personally, to place his mother in a home. For years they subsisted on in-home nurses during the day with him taking on the nightly duties. As his mother's dementia grew, however, she became a 24 hour demand. The toilet breaks, sherry breaks and even dog walks began to take over the wee small hours. Not to mention her penchant to shave with a traditional razor. More than once he'd had to take her to hospital with a bandaged knife wound. Then his own age began to catch up with him and he could no longer help support her physically.

He toyed with the idea of hiring 24 hour in-home nursing staff but, by that time, his mother hardly recognized her surroundings anyway. Besides, she had become so unsteady on her feet that she often required two people, or even more, to assist her. It was time. So he'd told her she was going to a health spa where she would be waited on hand and foot and never need to do anything for herself.

It was difficult to leave her there at first. She looked so old and confused and for the first time in many, many months, she remembered his name. "Don't go, Donny."

It broke his heart and he stayed, long into the night until she finally fell asleep. The nursing staff kept a respectful distance though they may have been in shock after discovering his mother's night attire: channel No. 5. Ducky fretted all that night that she'd wake up and call for him but, when he rang in the morning, she was complaining about the service.

Their accumulated wealth meant she did not have to share a room as many did in such establishments and he made sure she had her own television with dvd so that she could watch 'her' recorded episode of Jeopardy whenever she pleased. He even brought in the corgis for visits once a week and made sure they kept up their Sunday drive together, even if she had transformed into Jessica Tandy in her old age, insisting on sitting in the back seat.

It was a time where his friends polarized. Some shunned him for "placing his mother in an institution". It was a hard revelation that some of his acquaintances thought so little of him. This was not true, of course, of his second family at NCIS. These people never doubted for a moment that he did what he had to in the best interest of his mother and for that he would always be grateful.

Rather than judging him, the gentle folk of NCIS had, instead, looked at how to make life easier for both himself and his mother. Gibbs had come around to the nursing home only days after she had settled in to perform some much needed maintenance on her room : un-sticking windows, clearing pipes, installing heaters and even hanging some pictures for her. Mother insisted he should be paid for his services because "obliging and handsome servants like him were rare nowadays".

To his surprise, Mr Palmer often took time out to visit her on wrestling nights so they could watch together. He was sure his mother appreciated the company on some level but, at the same time, she complained bitterly about the bus boy who didn't do his work around the spa and snuck into her room to watch wrestling on her television. It didn't matter how many times he reminded her who Jimmy was, the information slipped through her fingers like sand.

Jimmy was not the only one who looked in on his mother. On the rare occasion that work overtook Ducky's visiting time, Abby would take it upon herself to call. Mother never really knew who Abby was, but she certainly liked her. So much so that she had concocted a relationship between himself and the Goth forensic scientist that involved grandchildren.

Ducky rather fancied that his mother and Abigail would have been firm friends had they been co-generational. His mother had always processed a forthright, self-assured manner which gelled well with Abby. She had been a nurse during the war and married his Scottish airman father, almost on a whim. She was from a good Southern family and used to servants, something rather at odds with his father's more frugal Scottish nature.

He remembered the time his mother's sister, Aunt Gloria, came to visit. She took a shine to father almost immediately leading to a rift between the two women which lasted well after his death. Whether the attraction was real or not, he would never know for his mother had always toed the line between eccentricity and downright insanity. It was one of the reasons that the onset of her dementia had been so difficult to pinpoint.

After many years in Scotland, his mother grew tired of his father's penny pinching ways and the quaint old city where the "sky was too low" and announced she was leaving his father and returning to her family home. Ducky was already in medical school at the time so he stayed behind and wished her well.

When he was finally offered a job back in the US, he never dreamed of moving in with his mother but over time, as her health declined, it seemed prudent.

As Ducky pulled into the driveway he saw a welcome addition : Jordon's car. For all the guilt he felt about leaving his mother in a nursing home, he was relieved to be able to resume a normal social life. In part he felt guilty but, in truth, he felt he deserved a little self indulgence at this stage of his life. Jordon was fabulous with mother, reveling in her title of "that little hussy", but she also knew when to give him space and when to be there.

The Morgan shuddered to an inelegant stop and Ducky smiled as the front door opened and Jordon appeared dressed in one of mother's aprons, a cloud of corgis swirling around her ankles. She was quite the chef, which some might find disturbing in a medical examiner, and often surprised him with little intimate dinners after a long night with mother. He wondered idly sometimes if this was the same scene his father would return to with mother standing on the stairs.

Jordon floated down the stairs to embrace him and Ducky thanked whatever deity had sent him this angel. She was beautiful, intelligent and, unfortunately, young. There's the rub: the age gap. Something that had never bothered him before was now paramount in his mind.

"You will give me a needle when it's time," he had told her one day. "I don't want to go like mother. It will be too much of a burden on you. You're young, you need to go and live your life."

Her answer had not been entirely convincing so he asked the only person he could trust to do the job right: Ziva.

"It will be quick, painless and untraceable," Ziva promised. "Would you like me to do the Corgis while I'm there?"

"I think Jordon could cope with the corgis," Ducky assured her.

Ducky chuckled as he climbed the stairs with Jordon's arm linked in his own. He needed something to look forward to in death. For it was only in death that they would discover than he'd bequeathed the corgis to Tony.


End file.
